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3 AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE, |
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DELIVERED IN THE CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH, : |
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TIWURSDAY, OCTOBER ate 1845, ,
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vy HENRY MEIGS,
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ADDRESS.

Lapies AND GENTLEMEN:

Tue American Institute, in its wish to provide on this occasion such
an address as would find favour in your judgments, had, on looking
around our Republic for one capable of so delightful and instructive an
address as would have deeply interested you in these most pure and
most useful subjects, invited the aid of the Hon. George I.unt, of New-
buryport, whose richly stored mind would have poured out before you
the true immense values of the farm, and also would have graced with
all the garlands of poetry the glorious regions of the flower garden.
The Institute, with great regret for his unexpected indisposition, has
directed me to exert my humble ability to fill the void thus produced.
In prompt obedience to its direction, as an ardent servant in the great
cause to which the Institute directs the greatest portion of its energy,
I am honoured with the task of delivering to you the views of the
American Institute in relation to these subjects. I beg your kind in-
dulgence while I make the effort, assuring you, that if 1 should fail in
pleasing you, it will not be for want of enthusiasm in the cause.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Let me begin by borrowing from the great-
est man that ever lived, from our own dearly beloved Washington, his
opinion of the Agricultural cause; an opinion among the very last
communicated to his fellow-men. That opinion, contained in his mes-
sage to Congress in 1796, was, That the Government of this Republic
should then establish a separate Department for Agriculture; that the
purse of the nation should be freely employed in the cause. He en-
treated Congress to establish a Home Department for Agriculture. The
American Tnstitute,s is now, and has been for some time past, engaged
in awakening the vast farming interest of this country to the fulfilment

. of Washington's wish. *

He knew. and all great men know, that the cultivation of the earth
is our very first and our most delightful duty. That Paradise lost by
transgression can only be regained here on eurth by the sweat of our
brows, in clearing away thorns and briars, and causing our vallies to
show forth their golden harvests, and our gardens to blossom with roses.
All savage life is “without agriculture, worth any BON ‘All semi-wild
existence is without a garden. By due care fey@ * -\-rcise of intelli-
gence, animals of a wild nature are subdued tor nN No habits. Man,
in the pride of his high standing, as one created in the likeness of God,
is capable cf subduing all things on earth to his own uses. He flies on

4

the back of the horse. He rides the enormous elephant in triumph.
He makes the little ox of former ages, weighing not more than three
or four hundred pounds, weigh five thousand. He will now get from
one acre a thousand bushels of valuable roots. He makes the desert soils
become cultivable fields and gardens! He will have the earth bear a
thousand happy beings where it bore but one unenlightened savage!
He will now travel through his farms and gardens at the speed of forty
miles an hour, and he prints the Holy Book by millions on millions, by
the same steam power by which he flies !

Happy are we to be in this period of time, when the temple of Janus
is truly closed ; and when those of the Almighty are hourly rising from
the ground, all through the civilized world, and unfolding their portals
toa “happier race.

No man ever wrought in the field or garden with his own hands,
without becoming more or less purified by the work. God has com-
manded it, and he has blessed it. In all that man does, except in the
farm and garden, remember that he can, if he will, commit forgery.
But in these he must be true. He has no art, no magic by which he can
simulate a flower, a grain of wheat, or anox! Be ihe evil spirit in him
what it may, in all these great productions of Almighty power, as the
agent of that power, he is compelled to be true. Nature will not obey
the evil spirit, and enable him to tell you a falsehood in these things.
The very man who will sell you chalk and water for milk, cannot sell
you rye for wheat, a violet for a rose, or a sheep for an ox!

Call up from the records of men those names which cannot die, end
you will find them all of one mind as to the culture of the earth. What is
the rule of that venerable empire at our antipodes: Chinese emperors
have been always bound by a custom of several thousand years, to ap-
pear in the field at the opening of every spring, and in the presence of
the first men of the empire, ¢ake hold of the plough and run the first
Jurrow !

Cato of Rome always cried aloud to the Romans, go to your fields
and work them with as much energy as you would meet the enemy in
battle! The most beautiful poet of ancient days, Virgil, wrote two
works that will never die. One on the management of stock, his Buco-
dics, (meaning care of cattle)—the other the G'eorgics, agriculture.

At the era of Virgil, Rome had attained by her power the command
of an hundred millions of men. That was the memorable Augustan age!
the real achme of Roman glory. Thus you perceive that the beloved
poet of the day, the truly admirable Maro, dévoted his rich mind first.
to the rais‘ng of cattle ! secondly to Georgics, or agriculture ; and lastly?
to the History of Rome’s infancy and father Eneds,

Such then was the imperial taste of Rome. She had, by follo vile the
just and noble precepts of Cincinnatus, Cato, Virgil, Warrd: @olnmeria,
of Theophrastus of Athens, and others of nature’s “noblemen, established
virtue in her people. Virgil states the maxims of Much cattle much wheat !
Cull from your seeds, Sruits always tie very best. Spare not your stur-
dy labour upon thet Italy can be for ever maintained as a garden by
manure of much cattle, and by constant labour. Steep the seeds of your
plants in 772 and the /ees of oil.

~

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Select the very best cattle to stock your farm. Kila dry your grain be.
fore you grind it, and it will be more wholesome. Mow your grass
while the dew is upon it. Agriculture is noble. The dictators of Rome
maintained themselves from a few acres by their own daily labour. By
such men and such means, says the Roman satirist, Juvenal, all the men
of Rome were brave and strong, and all the women chaste! The empire
grew to the enormous community of one hundred and twenty millions
of people.

Thiers, in his Philosophy of History, has recently beautifully illus.
trated this manhood of the Roman people, and also the causes of its fall.
Men grew proud; they began to disdain the labours of the farm ; they
chained their captives, and compelled them to labour during the day ; and
at night, says Columella, the best method to manage such an obstinate
race isto have a cellar with a strong deck over it, with a hole therein
just large enough ¢o let out one man at a time. These captives were
much larger men than the Romans, and required great care and severity
to render their services available in the labours of the field. Cicero, the
eloquent Cicero, had ten thousand of these white, fair-haired, blue-eyed
slaves upon his own estates.

This system could not endure, and poor Rome soon felt, by turns,
the horrors of famine. ‘The world was ransacked for grain to feed the
Roman people. Egypt, Sicily, Spain, every colony, was compelled to
send its grain to Italy. On one occasion the emperor, excited by the
cries of the famished citizens of the imperial city, on account of the
much delayed arrival of grain, in a public and solemn manner, in the
presence of the people, vowed to the gods, that unless the grain to feed
his people should arrive within three days, he would (showing it)
plunge that dagger into his own besom.

The grain arrived zz time to prevent the sacrifice. The glory of na-
tions, their virtue and their high agriculture, ARE THREE INSEPARABLE
FACTS !!

What was [England for fifteen hundred years? Her history will show
you, that her population never exceeded six millions during all that
time. In 1509, gardening began to be of some importance in England.
Before that time vegetables were imported from the Netherlands. Then
began the culture in England of cabbages, gooseberries, musk melons,
apricots, garden roots, &c. ‘The damask rose was introduced by Dr.
Linacre, physician of Harry the Sth. In 1526, roses were first conse-
crated as presents from the Pope! Hops from France! Pippin apples,
by Leonard Maseal, in 1525. Corinthian grapes, now called currants,
from Zante, in 1555. Musk roses, and several plums from Italy, by
Lord Cromwell. July flowers, and carnations, in 1567, Tulips from
Vienna, in 1578. Asparagus, oranges, lemons, artichokes, cauliflowers,
beans, peas, lettuce, in 1660. Then began the population of England to
grow. Then began the creation of the farmer. Then arose the delightful
dwellings of the yeomanry of England, on the domains which, for more
than a thousand years, had been occupied by feudal vassals, styled in
the old law books williens, over whom, in their subject condition, the
eleven hundred military castles of England had for so many ages frowned
tn aristocratic power ! Now behold the magic changes wrought by the
’ lig!

6

power of farm and garden. You see now the annual jubilee of these
noble interests, attended by all the gentlemen, lords and ladies of the
British empire. Victoria (to her credit I proclaim it) personally shows
to her subjects the example of love and regard for even a poultry yard !

Turn your eyes to France! Louis Philippe is the protector of the
Royal Society of Horticulture, of Paris. Thus giving his fine example
to all our patriotic citizens who are now so nobly engaged in forming
every where Farmer’s Clubs ; which, by thus condensing the theories
and experience of masses of men, will find those truths which are vital to
a powerful progress in Agriculture, as well as in any other cause. See
the Sultan of Turkey within a few months past sending commissioners
into every district of the Mussulman Empire, to inspect the condition
of farmers, to lend them money to buy stock and farming tools, to give
them the most valuable seeds, and ordaining that no man while engaged
in cultivating the earth shall be arrested for debt !!

Look for a moment at the value of cultivation! Spain for a long
time annually received from her mines in South America, some thirty
millions of dollars in gold and silver. Spain, which had before that time
a rich agriculture and a lofty name, now became proud and lazy; her
Hidalgos, with pompous step, paced the Prados of her cities, disdainmg
all labour. Spain dropped ner spade and hoe—spurned the plough—and
you all see the result.

England, by her parliamentary returns last year, shows the value of
her agriculture for that year to be three thousand millions of dollars ;
or as much in one year, as the mines of America had given Spain in a
hundred years.

Even France, so renowned for her civilization, has not yet redeemed
the land from the original curse. Poiteau put a question last July, to
the Scientific Congress of Rheims! How is it that France gathers but
six or seven grains for every one sowed, of her grain crops?

The emperor of Russia is now seeking an exchange between his
Farmer’s Clubs and those of all the world.

As for our own immense continent, which we have an indisputable
commission to subdue and to till, let us for a moment try to look at it
as it will be in the lifetime of hundreds of thousands of our children.
Think, if you can, of the future farms and gardens bordering the two
hundred thousand miles of river banks of this Republic! Think of
that glorious variety due to the climates, all of which, from tropical heat
to the northern cold! from the low levels to the lofty plains! Of the
myriads of sheep browsing on the sides cf your yet untouched chains
of hills and mountains peculiar to that fleecy race. See your improved
breeds of oxen, by millions taking the place of the buffalo on your
mighty western plains, fit for your markets when weighing from two
to five thousand pounds each. See your acres by the genius of chemistry,
and perhaps by electricity, united with the well instructed and perse-
vering industry of the cultivator, bearing, not the French six and a half
Sor one, but ten times that amount, of the purest wheat.

See your roads and division lines, marked, not by choke pears, sour
apples, and poor nuts, but by endless rows of the hundred varieties of
most delicious pears, apples and nuts. I mean by the latter, Madeira

\

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nuts and others, including the finest walnuts, which may just as readily
be grown as the bad ones.

See every farm-house and cottage, with its silk growing department.
See the pound weight clusters of choice Guldivated: grapes, in the hands
of every boy and oir ! And remember that by the movement, on rail-
roads as it soon will be, you can safely pass through a thousand miles of
such a country, in two or three days!) Every market of the Northern
States may be supplied daily with the fruits and flowers of the tropics—
and the invalids of either climate will be transferred with comfort to
any position advised by a physician. On the appearance of threatening
storms, the patient will be sent, Jaster than the gale, to a better clime,
imitating the birds who flee before a tempest and keep their feathers dry !

Ladies, allow me in the enthusiasm of the moment, to turn your at-
tention to the future cultivation of flowers. They belong to you of an-
cient right. Their lovely goddess is one of you, Flora! We have not
yet begun to see a field of. flowers : / Botanists have made mighty additions
to floral wealth, by searching most parts of the earth for specimens. But
up to this time, they have only designated ONE QUARTER OF A MILLION OF
PLANTS! All these have flowers, and all are susceptible, by Anowimg and
careful treatment, of greater variety and increased splendour. sabe
much have you admired the newly cultivated Dahlia of Mexico! You
perceive that from seedlings of single petals, and humble tints, art has
already qui/led them, and painted them, until they form rosettes of such
splendour as no ancient king or queen ever wore upon the breast.

France is cultivating pinks in a manner we yet do not see here. That
fragrant little flower, of cinnamon fragrance, has already been varied
hundreds of times in forms and colours. You all admire carnations. In
future days the pink garden will be of itself a delicious treat.

Roses are constantly becoming more varied by art. Already there
are more than a thousand different roses! Asters (stars) are becoming
of distinguished beauty. Tens of thousands of these lovely flowers were
combined in one floral edifice, exhibited in Boston, a few days since, by
the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. But we have only commenced,
Ladies, the adorning of our gardens with flowers.

The lovely race of violets demands your attention. See their eyes,
(for so they seem,) a// turned to the south with one accord. Seldom have
we seen a more lovely sight than a thick bed of these heart’s ease, all
eyes looking to the south! Who can fail to enjoy the sweet pea? what
a delicacy of growth its stem and flower present, and what a delicious
perfume breathes from its modest petals !

Ladies, you have seen the festoon rose bushes, natives of our own
land. Can any thing excel their loveliness ? branch after branch stretch-

= Tied
ing out to ten times the lengths of other rose bushes, and all loaded

with their delicious American flowers |! They have but just made their
appearance in some of our court-yards and gardens. Tuke care, hence-
Jorth, that you enwreath your fences and trellises with this native ro-
seate garland !

And there is another floral beauty, which once enraptured even the
most insensible of men. The tulip has been made to show all the co-

lours of the painter’s palette with the most admirable forms of etruscan

8

vases ! It has been grouped on beds by garden side-walks, in tens of
thousands. A single one has once been sold for an hundred guineas!
But, Ladies, there are yet uncultivated flowers of unknown beauty, to
be developed by the care and skill of gardeners, to thousands in num-
ber. And do not fail, Ladies, to examine the flowers with a powerful mi-
croscope- You will then find your admiration of them elevated to. ado-
ration of God, who elaborates their rich colours and their perfumes
Srom the brown earth on which you tread, and from the air and light!
Their magnified beauty is indescribable.

Let me, while I now enjoy the gratifying ovportunity, in behalf of
the American Institute, ask you to take care of the realm of flowers!
Maintain its power over men along with your own, to soften and render
that harder subject more and more civilized ! To meet him when he
comes from the sturdy toil of the field, with a bouquet of lovely flowers,
and your yet more enchanting smiles. Without you and the flowers, he is
indeed but a savage !

You cannot fail to observe that there is an intimate sympathy be-
tween the religion of men and the honest and delightful employment in
a garden, It is almost a certainty that the garden of the country cler-
gyman is a good one. In that alone, of our temporal concerns, we per-
ceive at once, that the spiritual pastor 7s at home. Innocence, health
and cheerfulness are nurtured, and flourish in the garden. He cannot.
be a lawyer, a merchant, or a politician, without impropriety; but a
garden is his natural home ; and happy the pastor who, by early rising
and proper labour in it, prepares his mind with its purifying influences,
and his body by the physical energy which it infuses, to labour in his
holy calling, for the eternal good of his congregation.

‘The American Institute, in carrying out the great objects of its char-
ter, has devoted much of its time and ability to the main good—Agri-
culture. With a view to gather wisdom from numbers, it has called a
convention of farmers, gardeners and silk growers, from all quarters of
the land, to meet in this city this day. This assembly will again apply
its force to the establishment of an Agricultural Department of Govern-
ment. The members approach that subject with the last best advice
of the illustrious Washington to us, couched in the following terms,
Tt will not be doubted that, with reference either to individual or na-
tional welfare, agriculture is of primary importance. In proportion as
nations advance in population and other circumstances of maturity, this
truth becomes more apparent, and renders the cultivation of the soil
more and more an object of public patronage. Institutions for pro-
moting it grow up, supported by the public purse! And to what object
cin it be dedicated with greater propriety? Among.the means which
have been employed to this end, none have been attended with greater
success than the establishment of boards, composed of proper charac-
ters, charged with collecting and diffusing information, and enabled, by
premiums and small pecuniary aid, to encourage and assist a spirit of
discovery and improvement, by stimulating to enterprise and experiment,
and by drawing to a common centre the results every where, of indi-
vidual skill and observation, and spreading them thence over the whole

9

nation. Experience accordingly has shown, that they are very cheap
instruments of cmmense national benefits.”

One great national object to come under the care of such a Depart-
ment, will necessarily be the culture of silk, Human experience has
taught us, that in all the immense variety of articles afforded by nature
for human comfort and convenience, there is no one thing connected
with the clothing of our race more to be cared for than this beauuful
article. What utility as a thread! what splendour as a garment! A\-
ready no human being is dressed to its satisfaction without some silk.
Once more valuable than gold, and worn only by the upper classes of
society, now it begins to form a portion of dress for almost every human
being. An immense experience has proved its high value; and the
millions of dollars which America annually pays to Europe for it—
while America ought to let Europe pay us for it—urges us to the cul-
ture of this great staple. Jrance says that silk can only be raised in
small quantities by individual families. That our reliance for its pro-
duction is absolutely upon that nice division of labour in which some one
or more of those members of a family who are unable to do the more
severe labours of the farm, must have a cocoonery. By an universal
application of this rule—and there is no other—a nation can not only
supply itself, but spare much for other nations.

And here allow me to repeat what is perfectly admitted by our Silk
~ Conventions. That by a happy adaptation as to climate, America is
more enabled to supply silk than any country on the globe, not except-
ing China; the only one which possesses the like fitness for that pur-
pose. I refer you to the report of facts on this point, made by our Silk
Conventions.

I feel authorized to declare, that the American Institute feels no truth
as being better settled, than that our Continent can and ought, in justice
to the natural qualities with which our Creator has endowed it, to be
the greatest silk growing country on the face of this globe!

But I console myself—although I shall not see it, perhaps—that the
day will soon come, in which this happy land of ours will receive for her
silk alone, fifty millions of dollars a year.

Let no man be discouraged in his efforts to make the soil of this
country productive! Industry has a power which may almost be
deemed magical. Who would expect from the granite hills of Massa-
chusetts and of Maine—locking as they do, as if in the tremendous up-
heavings of a deluge, they were rocky waves suddenly cooled while yet
they were rolling in that transforming revolution of the surface of our
earth—who would look to see those rocks, lately bearing but mosses and
shrubs, when struck by the wand of Pomona and of Flora, (as Moses
smote the rock for water,) pour out flowers and fruits like Damascus or
Canaan ! ar Bee

I saw that triumph /ately ! and like victories will be achieved over all
our most obdurate fields and hills by our posterity.

Omnia vincit labor. Labour conquers all, must be inscribed on our
standard.

Ladies, permit me now to say in parting, so long as your smiles shall
cheer the ardent labourer in the great cause of American industry, de-

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 3

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pend onit, that ardour can never cool! And we of the Institute invoke
those smiles as our greatest reward for our own labours. is

As to you, men of America, for us to urge you to persevere with un-
relaxing energy in this mighty cause, which is fast bearing upward our
beloved native land to the loftiest heights of wealth and power, and
glory! I would as soon, standing on the banks of our Cataract of Nia-
gara, tell that vast headlong torrent to go ahead!

Hollinger Corp.

Er Le